Children play in a foaming, polluted river in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photograph: REUTERS/Beawiharta

This boy swims through the sludgy Yamuna River in New Delhi, India. Photograph: REUTERS/Reinhard Krause

These boys splash around in an open drainage ditch in Manila, Philippines. Photograph: REUTERS/Romeo Ranoco

These boys balance over a murky puddle in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photograph: REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

This boy jumps over a puddle of toxic liquid at the Ghazipur landfill in New Delhi, India. Photograph: REUTERS/Parivartan Sharma

Just getting from one place to another can be difficult. This little girl walks through a sea of garbage produced by La Terminal food market in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Photograph: REUTERS/Jorge Dan Lopez

These boys navigate through heaps of rubbish on the streets of Santa Fe, Argentina. Photograph: REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

These children stand waist-deep in a garbage heap outside New Delhi, India. Photograph: REUTERS/Kamal Kishore

Many are accustomed to going about their day-to-day activities in contaminated environments. This child eats breakfast on a sofa in the middle of the a garbage dump in Tondo, Philippines. Photograph: REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

Sometimes useful things can be found amongst the rubbish. These children sift through garbage along the railway tracks for recyclable materials in Karachi, Pakistan. Photograph: REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

This boy pushes a cart full of charcoal, which was made at a garbage dump in Tondo, Philippines. Photograph: REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

Despite it all, children are surprisingly adept at finding ways to entertain themselves amidst all the rubbish. This little boy, also in a slum area of Karachi, Pakistan, makes his own toys from the garbage that surrounds him. Here, he plays with a tire while other slum residents burn garbage in the background. Photograph: REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

These children have made a makeshift playhouse out of materials they found at this dump site, where they live, in Manila, Philippines. Photograph: REUTERS/Darren Whiteside

A little girl and her brother play in a junkyard outside of Yangon, Myanmar. Photograph: REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

A child swings under a bridge amidst stacks of garbage in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photograph: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

Children play amongst the garbage in a slum area of Karachi, Pakistan. Photograph: REUTERS/Athar Hussain

A girl jumps from one garbage heap to another at a tannery in Dhaka, Bangladesh. These waste products will be used to make feed for poultry, while the tannery — which doesn’t treat its waste water — spews acids and heavy metals into the city’s river. Photograph: REUTERS/Andrew Biraj

These children ride their makeshift raft down a river of garbage in Jakarta, Indonesia. Photograph: REUTERS/Enny Nuraheni

This girl happily swings while smoke rises from the garbage dump behind her in Mumbai, India. Photograph: REUTERS/Vivek Prakash

This boy flies his kite over a dumping site at the Bishnumati River in Kathmandu, Nepal. Photograph: REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar

These boys run through a garbage dump outside Islamabad, Pakistan. Photograph: REUTERS/Ahmad Masood